


A Sad Fact

by onward_came_the_meteors



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Elven-boats, Fellowship of the Ring, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Lothlórien, One Shot, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 14:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21120125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onward_came_the_meteors/pseuds/onward_came_the_meteors
Summary: "Yes, but it's been thirty years, can't you forget how?"The Fellowship sets off from Lothlorien, only to find out that river travel isn't as easy as they would think. And why an elf and a dwarf should definitely not be in the same boat.





	A Sad Fact

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came from the behind the scenes of the extended edition where John Rhy-Davies talks about shooting the boat scenes.

Merry looked up at the sun shining through the leaves of Lothlórien and thought to himself that beautiful places were much harder to leave than unfriendly ones.

Rivendell, for one. True, they had arrived there after being chased by those Black Riders, and maybe that wasn't the best first impression, but then again maybe it made the rest of their stay seem so wonderful by contrast that they didn't want to leave.

Beautiful place. Not easy to leave. Much different than Weathertop, or Caradhras, or Moria…

Moria. Merry hastily turned his thoughts away before he could relive the sight of Gandalf slipping off into the chasm again. It had only been a few weeks (weeks? Time was different in Lothlórien), so the memory still panged. And Merry hadn't even been as close to Gandalf as some of the others. He didn't have it the worst.

Definitely not, since no one else was mentioning how there would be an extra seat in one of the boats. 

The Fellowship, along with some of the Lothlórien elves, were setting up said boats along the river. They were different from the boats Merry was used to, exactly alike with all those smooth edges, like each boat had been grown out of some kind of boat tree.

Actually, considering what he'd seen of elves so far, maybe that wasn't too far-fetched.

"I don't know about this, Mr Frodo," Sam was saying, twisting nervously on a rock near the riverbank. "Seems like an awful risk, these boats." 

"It'll be all right." Frodo had been standing a bit apart from the others, but had come over once he noticed Sam's nervousness. 

"But what if one of them tips over with you in it, and the Ring ends up-" 

"I can swim, Sam," Frodo said. It did not escape Merry how he was focusing on the first part of Sam's sentence. 

"Can you?" A new voice piped up, and Pippin crawled out of a bush. Why he was in the bush, Merry had given up asking. 

"Hello, Pip. Can I what?" 

"Swim!" 

"He grew up in Brandy Hall, Pippin, of course he can swim," Merry said. Frodo had been adopted by Bilbo when he was twenty-one and Merry was seven, so Merry's memories of the time before that weren't crystal clear, but he remembered that much. 

"Yes, but it's been thirty years, can't you forget how?" Pippin kicked a small stone that landed in the water with a ploosh. 

"Let's hope not," Frodo said hurriedly, seeing the look on Sam's face. "Oh, look, one of the elves is coming over." 

One was indeed. It was one of the unfamiliar Lothlórien elves, and unfortunately also seemed to be one of the ones who didn't speak Westron. After a minute of what Merry assumed was Sindarin, the elf gave up and pointed to the boats. 

"They're ready," Frodo guessed. "Thanks… er, le athae?" 

The elf nodded and walked away, leaving Merry confused as to whether whatever Frodo had said had been right or if the elf was just being polite. 

The rest of the Fellowship gathered on the banks and began clambering aboard the boats. Merry figured that it was inevitable that he'd end up next to Pippin, (and besides, someone had to keep an eye on him) so he slid into the boat next to him. A couple packs got tossed along with the hobbits. 

"We're just luggage now," Merry remarked aloud to himself, but Pippin was preoccupied digging around in a pack for lembas bread. 

After an explanation about said bread that was really too lengthy for its own good (not to mention it was about the most words in a row the elf had ever said to them) by Legolas, Merry shifted his position so that Pippin was in front of him. These boats were really too narrow for two people to sit side by side, even hobbits. 

Nearby, Frodo was holding out a hand to help Sam into their own boat. With several clanking noises from Sam's frying pans, the other two hobbits settled in. Boromir made to join them, but Aragorn hastily stepped in front of him and got behind Frodo and Sam himself. 

Merry winced. For a moment a dark glare seemed to sweep over Boromir's face, but in another instant it was gone, and Boromir was trudging across the riverbank to Merry and Pippin's boat with a slightly confused expression. 

The man sat in the back of the boat, moving aside a couple of packs and grabbing a paddle. "Are you two all right up there?" 

"Oh yeah, we've been in boats loads of times," Pippin tossed his head a little. "It's Sam you've got to watch for." 

"Really all the non-Brandybucks," Merry added. 

Boromir tilted his head and looked at Pippin. "Isn't he a—a Took?" 

"The Tookiest Took," Merry said. "Don't let him fool you." 

Pippin splashed a few drops of water on him before turning back to Boromir. "I'm a Took, but I spend so much time at Buckland I'm basically as honorary Brandybuck." 

Merry snorted. "You Tooks wish you could be honorary Brandybucks. Only Frodo gets that honor." 

"Well-" 

But whatever Pippin was about to say was cut off as Aragorn called out from his boat. "Everyone ready?" 

There were assorted answers of "yes" and some splashes with the paddles (and Sam looked very much like he'd have liked to say "no") and the Fellowship was gliding along the Silverlode. 

They were off. 

...and then they halted the boats again, because Galadriel was there and she wanted a farewell picnic.

Well, Merry certainly wasn't going to complain. 

After that had ended, they were back on the water, with the unearthly beauty of Lórien fading in the distance, along with the haunting notes of Galadriel's song. 

The sounds of Boromir consistently slicing his paddle through the water were soothing, especially since Merry didn't have to help. One might call him lazy, but when the paddles were longer than you were, it was a decent excuse. 

The sun fluttered on the water, darting away at the approach of the boats that cut apart the shimmering surface, and the trees on either side of the banks swayed side to side.

Everything was peaceful.

SPLASH!

Merry and Pippin flipped around in their seats so fast it was a wonder they didn't rock the boat. It took a few seconds to spot, but then— 

"Look!" Frodo pointed, leaning halfway off the side of his boat. 

Merry followed his gaze, and saw Legolas and Gimli's boat floating upside down in the water, clearly capsized. He had a brief moment to be worried, but then Gimli's head broke the surface. 

He was yelling something, but between his soaked beard covering his mouth and the river water he kept spitting out, he was completely unintelligible.

"There's one…" Boromir murmured from behind Merry, halting their own boat so it floated in place. In front of them, Aragorn had done the same. 

There was a thud and a high-pitched cry of "Ow!" from underneath the flipped-over boat, and a few seconds later, Legolas popped out, rubbing his head and spitting water. 

"Are you both unhurt?" Aragorn called. 

Both Legolas and Gimli nodded, still trying to get the excess of river out of their mouths while treading water.

"What happened?" Boromir this time. 

Neither of them answered, but all of a sudden Gimli's eyes widened. 

"The packs!" Without explanation, he took a breath and vanished below the surface again. 

"The what?" 

Apparently just realizing what Gimli had said, Legolas gasped and followed the dwarf underwater. 

The other six members of the Fellowship were left in silence in their boats. 

"Ah… Aragorn?" 

A dragonfly landed on the rim of the boat before flying away again. 

"Yes, Frodo?" 

"How many packs did we bring from Lórien?" 

"Eight." 

"And how many of those are in these two right-side-up boats?" 

Silence. Merry could almost hear the Fellowship counting in their heads. Pippin's head flicked blatantly from boat to boat. 

"...I see the problem." 

"Yes." 

But just then, Gimli and Legolas breached the surface again, this time with packs slung over each of their arms. Said packs were then unceremoniously dumped into Merry, Pippin, and Boromir's boat (the closest one) before dwarf and elf swam back over to their tipped-over boat. 

"How do we get it back over?" Legolas muttered after staring at it for a few seconds.

"Aren't you from Mirkwood?" Even though Aragorn was still in his boat, he had apparently heard what Legolas said. Maybe if you lived with elves long enough you adapted. "The entirety of Laketown trade is by boat." 

Legolas replied by saying something in Sindarin that Merry, monolingual though he was, could guess at the meaning of. Aragorn just laughed. 

“Crazy elf.” Gimli swam over and helped get the boat the right way up again.

“I thought these boats were unable to sink?” Pippin asked from his position on his and Merry's boat.

“Unable to sink, not unable to tip over,” Boromir said. There was a funny tone to his voice. Was he… yes. The stubborn soldier of Gondor was trying not to laugh. Merry smirked, but had to hold back a laugh himself as he took in the scene before him.

The very wet elf and dwarf were trying to get back into the boat without it tipping over again, and… it was not going well.

“Someone should help them,” Aragorn remarked, as Legolas accidentally splashed Gimli in the face in an attempt to get back on the boat.

“Yeah.” The hobbits and Boromir all nodded noncommittally.

“Well don't volunteer all at once,” Aragorn said, paddling his boat over to the currently elf-and-dwarf-less boat. “Frodo and Sam, help me here.”

"I can—" Boromir started, lifting his own paddle, but Aragorn waved him off. He and the two hobbits grabbed onto the edge of the capsized boat. 

"On three…one… two... " 

Legolas and Gimli realized what was happening and dove out of the way just in time. 

"THREE!" 

WHOOM! 

The boat flipped upright with a suddenness that sent a wave crashing over to the other boat and splashing onto Merry's feet. 

"Now help me hold it steady so Legolas and Gimli can get back in," Aragorn instructed Frodo and Sam.

The hobbits obliged, and after a bout of miscommunication that resulted in more than a few members of the Fellowship getting splashed, a completely soaked Legolas and Gimli finally ended up in the boat.

“That,” Gimli finally said, as he and Legolas took heaving breaths, “was entirely your fault.”

“How could it have been my fault?” Legolas protested. “You're the one wearing all that heavy armor, you probably tipped it.”

“And of course there's no way a ridiculously tall elf who's spent this whole time leaning over the side to stare at every interesting-looking tree we pass could possibly have tipped the boat!”

“I have not!”

Just before Legolas and Gimli could start yet another pointless argument, Aragorn intervened.

“We're switching up the boats, everyone.” Aragorn announced. “Frodo and Sam, you're going with Gimli. Legolas, come with me.”

“Fine.” Legolas leapt onto Aragorn’s boat as Frodo and Sam climbed in with Gimli.

The Fellowship continued their paddling downstream. Boromir—quite unwisely and against Merry's warning—let Pippin handle one of the paddles. This went as well as one would expect. After the third time they nearly hit a rock, Boromir took the paddle back and Merry treated him to the story of Cousin Berilac's thirty-second birthday, a.k.a. the last time anyone let Pippin handle a boat. But on the whole, it was quiet for a few more minutes.

Gimli was still frustrated about the boat accident.

“It's a sad fact,” he said—addressing Frodo and Sam, but the boats were so close that Merry couldn't help hearing, “that whenever a dwarf and an elf are in a boat together, and the boat capsizes, the blame will always be placed on the dwarf.”

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, however, there was another loud splash and several yells. Legolas and Aragorn’s boat had tipped over, dumping them both in the river.

This time, Boromir, Merry, and Pippin held the boat steady as Aragorn and Legolas climbed back in, all wet. Gimli smirked.

“Does everyone still think it was my fault the boat capsized before?” he asked.

“Why are you trying to blame me?” Legolas asked, now back in the boat, but even more soaked.

No one answered him. 

After everyone had gotten situated in their respective boats, and the majority of the packs had been moved into the emptiest boat—the one with only two people instead of three—Aragorn, Gimli, and Boromir readied their paddles and continued to push down the river.

Merry shifted in his boat, trying to avoid the puddle of water caused by the soaking packs that had been dumped inside. 

"Stop moving," Boromir hissed from behind him. Merry turned his head to look at him. 

"Why?" 

"Because," Boromir was making sure to keep his voice low so no one in the other boats could hear him, "Ours is currently the only boat that hasn't tipped over and I want to see the look on their faces once they realize it." 

Slowly, a grin spread over Merry's face. "Excellent." 

"Can we just give their boats a little nudge with a paddle?" Pippin chimed in from the front. "Just in case." 

Boromir just laughed, but he did cast a speculative glance at the other two boats before giving a mighty stroke with the paddle, pushing them farther forward in the river.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! (This is the first time I've posted a fanfic!)


End file.
